Hey marketers, you should be creating content for Tinder

Forget just thinking about your content distribution strategy for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, the next big platform brands should be thinking about is Tinder.

You might just think it’s a dating app, but Tinder has a mission of bringing people closer together around the world. In just 2.5 years, it’s made significant progress towards that goal – 8bn matches made. That’s 300 per second.

Needless to say, brands have taken note. Speaking on the first day of The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity today, founder Sean Rad said consumers are essentially using the platform to discover content, and they’re open to brands being there. “They are there digesting randomised information, so it’s a great environment to introduce brand messages. [The consumer] is in a frame of thought where they’re looking to absorb things.”

In fact they’re doing so on average for 11 minutes per day. In a rally call for the predominantly advertising-based crowd, Rad added: “If you don’t evolve to deliver content at the rate at which we now consume it, you risk being irrelevant.”

But he warned brands that to get people to “swipe right”, which essentially means to like or accept them, they have to provide something that is exciting. “It’s about [offering] something raw and new and special. What excites me the most is brands that say they’re going to launch some exclusive piece of content.”

Some of the organisations experimenting with it have included a puppy adoption company, the film Ex Machina and Gillette. By providing something unique, brands have managed to engage with a consumer base that you would otherwise assume to be disenchanted by the presence of a corporation in their dating profile.

“We thought there would be more backlash, but it’s been quite the opposite. People like matching with a brand,” added Rad. He explained this comes down to the fact the platform allows the users to be in control. Its double opt-in system – once to receive info, and once to allow someone to interact with you – enables them to choose whether to participate or not. “If you don’t want to hear from a brand, you just swipe left.”